1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital video camcorder including a pause function. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method, apparatus, and medium for controlling digital video recording where parameters related to encoding video frames that are being currently encoded are stored when a pause command is received during recording, and a method, apparatus, and medium for continually recording based on the stored parameters when the pause command stops.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional digital camcorder.
In the conventional digital camcorder that stores an encoded video in a memory using a codec, the digital camcorder starts recording when a record start/stop button 110 is pressed and stops recording when the record start/stop button 110 is pressed again. The record start/stop button 110 may be provided as separate buttons: a record start button and a record stop button. A video recorded from when the record start button is pressed until the record stop button is pressed is stored as a file, and a video recorded from when the record start button is pressed again until the record stop button is pressed again is stored as another file.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a conventional process of digital video recording.
The digital camcorder is in standby (S210) and determines whether the record start button has been pressed (S220). If the record start button has been pressed, recording begins (S230) but if not, the digital camcorder continues to be in standby. The digital camcorder determines whether the record stop button has been pressed during recording (S240) and if the record stop button has been pressed, a file in which the recorded video is stored is closed and the parameters related to encoding the video are reset (S250). Recording continues if the record stop button has not been pressed. The parameters related to encoding the video includes a reference frame used for encoding the present frame, a bit rate information, a number of bits used for encoding the frames, and quantization parameters.
However, when recording an image using only the record start button and the record stop button as described above, encoding parameters are unnecessarily re-calculated since the parameters related to encoding are reset every time the record stop button is pressed even when wanting to briefly pause between recording and continuing to record similar images. In addition, there is an inconvenience of having to use, for example, an image editor to manage the videos in a single file since videos are stored in separate files whenever the record stop button is pressed.